On Friday, Oct. 6, Milwaukee Film’s Cultures & Communities Festival will hold its Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration at Radio Milwaukee. The event is part of the Milwaukee Film program Cine Sin Fronteras (cinema without borders), which presents regular film screenings and events that center on the identity, culture and history of Latinx communities around the world.
The evening begins with a panel discussion led by Marquette University philosophy professor Stephanie Rivera Berruz at 6 p.m. After the panel, lively performances from La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón, Bomberxs D’Cora and jazz group De La Buena start at 7:30.
Hispanic Heritage Month, which is observed from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, honors and celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Latinx Americans. The celebration is meant for both people within and outside Latinx communities to learn about and experience other cultures.
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“These events are around just educating the general public about our heritage and how it looks different for everyone,” said Adilene Quezada, program coordinator for Cine Sin Fronteras. “I feel like when we talk about Latinos, a lot of times people will tend to just think Mexicans because obviously, it’s the country that’s the closest to us. But this year, I feel like we did a really great job at sort of covering the entire diaspora when it comes to being Latinx.”
The panel discussion, called “Ancestral Wisdom: Afro-Latino Memory and Cultural Practices,” will explore how generations pass down information and how traditions evolve in Afro-Latinx cultures. Along with Dr. Rivera Berruz, the discussion will feature other Afro-Latinx speakers from Milwaukee and Ivelisse Diaz, the director of La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón, who also will perform and lead dance and percussion workshops throughout the night.
“Oh my god, I am so excited about that,” Diaz said. “I’m going to be in the panel discussion, learning, listening. I’m really excited to see women frontline in the panel discussion. I think that’s so powerful. As women, we are natural storytellers, so to be in spaces of much-needed conversation is just really amazing.”
Diaz emphasized how these kinds of discussions are important for bridging the larger community.
“I’m just really happy that a piece of Chicago will be there,” Diaz said. “Yes, we’re an hour and a half away, but that’s close. This is how we come together and heal from one county to the other and from one city to the other. You know, bringing the faces and knowing that from Milwaukee to Chicago, we’re kind of exploring the same page, and that means that we’re organizing as a bigger community, and I think that’s really powerful.”
La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón will put on a live storytelling performance of Bomba, an Afro-Puerto Rican style of music and dance characterized by traditional drums, singing and dancing that feel like a rhythmic conversation between the elements.
“[Bomba] tells the stories of our ancestors, of those who came before us,” Diaz said. “It is one of the oldest forms of documentation of our history. That history shows up in the songs in the call and response.”
Bomba isn’t just educational and historical. “It moves me,” Quezada said. “I’m not sure if it’s because I’m an emotional person, but watching them dance and all sing together and like drumming with all these different beats, it’s a really beautiful thing to see.”
Audience members can participate in the performance by dancing along and singing some call-and-response phrases.
Diaz said she hopes that the event will bring more consistent visibility to Black and brown voices and show people how much there is to learn about other cultures.
“We want to have these conversations so folks know that September and February are not the only two months we should be celebrating Black and brown,” Diaz said. “We should be celebrating every day, because we wake up as Black or brown people every day.”
